Through illness I flipped the competitive entry exam to Dartmouth – the normal way to a naval commission which was taken at 13 in those days. I had however already secured an Astor Scholarship to Dover, still then with a strong military tradition.  The fees were also discounted for the sons of Colonial Servants – most welcome to my father.  The plan was for me then to join the Navy by the alternative ‘Special Entry’ as it was called, post-public school.

While I was making the most of my first exposure to enemy action at my home on the Sussex coast – we were casually bombed within days of the outbreak of WW2 – the college, deemed to be too close to the front-line in the coming air-war, was making hurried evacuation plans (we gained an extra week or so’s holiday while they were cobbled together – which was why I was still at home to be bombed).

So my first contact with public-school life was on a darkened platform at Tiverton Junction where harried masters with lists and tiny torches in their hands were trying to marshal us in the blackout onto the ‘Tivvy Bumper’, the local push-pull to Tiverton Town Station.  For we were moving in on Blundells School until we could find a roof of our own.

It would be difficult to bed together two more disparate versions of the public-school ideal of 1939.  Dover College – when last I visited it 30-40 years ago? – has changed out of all recognition.  No doubt Blundells may too have suffered a radical sea-change (although somehow I doubt it) in the last 70+ years.  In common of course we shared with them the general background concept that all such foundations existed to man and uphold Britain’s place in the sun, at a time – for the last time – when a third of the countries of the world were still coloured pink in our atlases, and ‘the sun never set etc. etc.’

Blundells appeared to draw its boys largely from the more affluent members of the West Country farming community; and while we were properly in awe of its prowess at rugby, we saw its style as belonging to an earlier age and its members as uncouth and parochial.

Dover on the other hand was in its last phase as the poor man’s Wellington.  It was proud of the string of generals – even Field Marshals – it had produced, some of them not undistinguished.  Membership of the OTC was compulsory; our bugle band was famous – and practiced noisily at all times of the day and night.  We still had a large Army Sixth form – though truth to say by the time I entered it there were far more destined for careers in the Navy than the Army.  Which is why I was there myself.

Though we may have differed in style and outlook, Blundells took us in charity; and turned their school and timetables upside-down to host us.  Sharing classrooms was a cox and box scramble; we played games in the morning and had lessons far into the evening. We were billeted out: as the junior and smallest house Leamington (named from the evacuation of WW1), was billeted upon Halberton, a village a hilly 5  miles or so out of Tiverton, dependent upon our bicycles for getting in and out.  Did it really rain every day that winter ?

I do not know whether or not it was the result of any warlike activity but it was on one of those lonely wet rides from Halberton, sodden school-satchel on back, that I first encountered the hazards of air-travel, fortunately vicariously.  In archetypal West Country winter weather, low cloud-base, driven rain dead on the nose as head-down I stood on the pedals against the gale, I heard a large aeroplane slowly bumbling low overhead invisible in the murk.  To my right, bunkers and tees only discernable faintly in outline, was the Tiverton golf-course.  A smudge at the limit of visibility slowly took shape as an Imperial Airways Hannibal, the jumbo of pre-war luxurious flying, looking like an airborne egg-crate, lurching into a wind half as fast as itself.  It sat sedately down and trundled in dowager majesty down the fairway into the boundary fence where, as if in slow motion, it noiselessly fell apart.

Ditching my bicycle I raced across the squelching links to save life, arriving in time to see the white-coated steward handing out the passengers down the steps, all scatheless, amidst sang-froid murmurings in upper-class accents.

By the first Easter term of war the school authorities had found us a place of our own, Poltimore House , the erstwhile home of the Lords of the village of that name, Bampfyldes by family surname, now somewhat decrepit after various unsuccessful institutional uses (I refer to the house, not the baron, and as the house was then in 1939; for, as those that watch the Antiques Roadshow on television will see, the present peer is in fine fettle).

It stood about five miles out of Exeter, out of sight at the end of a (mile-?)long drive – a gravel track across parkland gone to pot – and was a square Regency-style stucco wedding-cake-without-frills placed snuffer-like over an earlier more modest Tudor home. Leamington, was apportioned the Tudor remains.

The estate’s derelict glory was two long parallel avenues of limes, the broader bordering the remains of ornamental gardens flanked by laurels and the occasional rhododendron, the narrower a green tunnel of limes framing Poltimore village church at the far end – half a mile away to my 14-year old eyes – beautiful beyond words in early summer.

The park was substantial and included a large wood (to be the scene of a grislier plane crash later in the war), and in front of the house itself a level area upon which rugby posts were erected – to little purpose because most of the season it was under two inches of water- while to our Leamington side of the building were tennis courts on what was reputed to have been a Tudor bowling green – graced by Sir Francis Drake we liked to imagine.

The lands marched with those of the home of  Sir Richard Acland (a pious baronet often in the religious news of the times), Killerton Park, soon to become the wartime home of Battle Abbey girls school.  Whence was it surprising how often our OTC exercises, whichever direction they took off in, would wheel about in the throes of mock-warfare to end up in the triumphant capture of the Killerton Park perimeter?

Dear Poltimore: Dover, not being  too barbarian or uncultured a school, did its best to minimise the wear and tear of educational usage, keeping it up as well as could be under wartime shortages of material and cash. It has suffered – how it has suffered! -further metamorphoses since the war and further periods of empty abandonment: now its remnants can be seen  – open to the subsequent Bristol-Exeter  motorway – sporting a hideous and incongruous Mansard roof, relic of transient medical usage.

[In connection with a BBC television programme a plan was made to try and save it in 2003(?).  Together with a party of Old Dovorians a visit was arranged.  What desolation!  The magnificent gilded and mirrored room that had been our 6th Form Common Room, one of the finest examples of a saloon of its period, it was said, setting for the surrender of Exeter in the Civil War, all stripped - everything vandalised, holes in roofs, even the swirling banisters from the main staircase looted………………………]

Back to 1940 – that spring holiday back on the South Coast – the ‘invasion coast’ – was a strange deserted time, an area forbidden to all but established residents, our outlet to the shore a couple of hundred yards away barred by barbed wire, the shingle mined.  Occasionally there would be an explosian, a wave, a straying dog, sometimes an incautious person would set off one of the mines.  I remember one day a red setter passed our front gate carrying a human hand in its mouth.

I remember also a tiny figure in a dark cloak gazing out to sea at the grey blur of horizon one wet day; he was more blue than tan in the cold, the exiled Emperor Haile Salassie of  Ethiopia – dreaming of African sun and nubile slaves perhaps.

Then with the summer holidays the weather became glorious and it was the Battle of Britain.  For a 15-year-old, to be living only a few flying minutes from one of the most famous of the fighter stations, Tangmere (with lesser emergency stations – Coolham et alall around), during that  summer was like Jorrock’s description of foxhunting  “all the glory of war with only five-and-twenty percent of the danger”.

The dog-fights often came down nearly to the rooftops, empty cartridge cases tinkling on the tiles, leavened by occasional splinters from flak shells.  We would cheer and wave if it was a Hurricane, dive into the flowerbeds for cover if a guns-blazing Messerschmidt.

This was not intended to be a ‘war reminiscence’, a series of gee-whizz anecdotes; but it may give some flavour of the times; because it brought experiences which nowadays would be called traumatic and lead to counselling and psychiatry; but from which I have never detected any after, side or hidden effects whatsoever, either in my own case or my contemporaries’.

So to return to Dover College in Devon as 1940 waned.  Schooling during wartime did have rum aspects, apart from the more obviously warlike which I shall mention in a moment.  The first impact was upon the staff, particularly on ours with so military a history and aspiration. A majority of the housemasters were retired soldiers - de riguer? – of field rank and still on the Reserve of Officers. These included my own, Major Bruce-Johnson – universally adored.  Soon most of them had been recalled to their regiments; and the school was scouring the retirement homes for replacements.

One I remember, still in keeping with our military tradition (though in his case it may have been of Boer rather than of Great War vintage) was a Major Belcher who ostensibly taught us geography but whom I remember better for becoming incandescent on hearing some wretch among my contemporaries refer to ‘golf’;  ‘goff’ – it’s ‘goff’ roared the scandalised major. Other elderly gentlemen did their best to inculcate scientific mysteries – with marked lack of success in my case I fear.

Public school matrons were a race apart in that barbaric age.  Regardless of the degree of Spartan ruthlessness – and I believe some College houses had matrons who were comparatively humane – they were universally known as Hag: Hag This or That according to their spinster name.  The Leamington Hag, short, stout and malign of mien, was well known to outdo all the Hag sisterhood in ferocity.

Any boy misguided enough to go to her complaining of any distemper whatever would be given the rough side of an abrasive tongue and an aperient of excoriating impact. No other cause or remedy was permitted entry to her cosmos.

As the winter progressed a pain under my ribs intensified.  Finally, thinking nothing could be worse than the level it had now reached, I went to her room.  Having been admonished (a suitably polite word for the paint-stripping earful I received from her along with the depth-charge to the bowels) as an impertinent malingerer, I was directed straight out onto the rugger field.  At some stage I collapsed with double pneumonia and pleurisy, to awake after a period of delirium in the make-shift school sanatorium and the surprising kindliness of its sister.

I achieved fame not usually accorded so junior a boy by having an announcement made by the headmaster at morning prayers that “a boy is seriously ill in the sanatorium so the school will keep as quiet as possible” – as if one could silence the natural riot of schoolboys however well-meaning!

With very few exceptions my contemporaries were indeed at all times well-meaning, as amiable and civilised as nature and a benign school ethos can make young males together (“There is only one School Rule. A Breach of Common Sense is a Breach of School Rules” – is that still the legend?).  By and large it was a happy enough school and unfashionably I was happy enough there.

Following Dunkirk, the Home Guard was called into being by Churchill (‘to fight them on the beaches…etc’). Originally they were the Local Defence Volunteers and wore LDV armbands over civilian clothes and were armed if they were lucky with 12-bores and even pikes – yes pikes – against the expected invading panzer blitzkrieg.  All the senior half of the College OTC, that’s to say those over 16, were converted at a stroke into the Mobile Reserve Platoon of the Bradninch Company, 3rd (Cullompton) Battalion of the Devon Home Guard; how delightfully it still rolls off the tongue in its bucolic military splendour!

That this should happen was explicable on two counts: as a school with a military tradition our OTC armoury already had more real weapons – standard army issue Lee-Enfield .303 rifles, Mills bombs, Thompson sub-machine guns of Chicago fame, even a Vickers heavy machine-gun – than the rest of the Devon HG put together; and secondly the ‘mobile’ bit meant that the masters could have petrol for their motorcars.  A true win-win situation.

As a result, Sundays, the day proclaimed by Holy Writ to be for our recuperation from a dawn-to-dark week of  work, prep and games, became a doubly exhausting as defence training exercises similarly filled out the daylight hours.

Of course we loved it.  Particularly when frequently we had mock battles with the local static HG units, the Bradninch Company or the Silverton or Broadclyst Platoons or the like, we acting as German paratroops intent on capturing their headquarters, because (oh illicit joy) all the local units’ headquarters were invariably in their ‘locals’. The local Home Guard units would charitably roll over at the end of these weekend ‘battles’. I thus acquired a good working knowledge of the better public houses north-east of Exeter.

I also wangled myself the appointment as the unit’s Armourer Lance-Sergeant.  This was a splendid wheeze as firstly I acquired that most desirable of retreats in any such community but most particularly beloved of fighting men as I later found out in the Navy, a private caboosh. It was beneath the foot of the Tudor staircase; that is to say my armoury, packed with lethal weapons and demolition charges, grenades, sticky bombs, anti-tank projectiles, was virtually at the dead-centre of the building..  Here, sitting in inviolable seclusion on an ammunition box, I could toast bread stolen from the kitchens before a blazing grate – stamping out the occasional flying spark before it made a Guy Fawkes’s benefit of both the Poltimore seat and a minor public school.

The unlimited access it provided, secondly, to most unsuitable weaponry meant my familiars and I could supplement our scant rations – schoolboys are reputedly always hungry and wartime rations coupled with warlike exertions made them trebly so – with  a welcome rabbit spitted over an open fire in the woods.

For, as part of our field-toughening, our enlightened headmaster, Dr ‘George’ Renwick who had instantly promoted himself CO of our HG unit, encouraged us to bivouac in the grounds in strictly active service conditions, rather than sleep prosaically in our dormitories.

Many a dawn rabbit fell to a Lee-Enfield,  small-bore tubed for target practice, thanks to my guardianship of the armoury keys.

Another break from desk routine was when the local War Agricultural Committee, having had some marginal mountainside ploughed up for food, would find a precious crop rotting in the field from a surfeit of rain and a scarcity of labour; and would send the school an SOS for emergency help in lifting it.

One such appeal, larger and more urgent and further away than any of the others, resulted in all the senior half of the school being embussed before light, breakfastless, and heading for a huge potato prairie near Torrington. We were promised food on arrival, to be provided by the Womens’ Voluntary Service.

Bitter rain slashed.  We had no waterproofs but as hardened farm-hands by then, we made poke bonnets out of spare potatoe sacks; and addressed the rotting crop.  Those spuds that were not already visibly deliquescent exploded at the first touch into a nauseous stinking mush. No breakfast arrived.  The war-time fervour of patriotism began to wear thin.

When finally early in the afternoon two elderly souls, brave in their WVS green, with one small tea-urn of thin soup appeared through the downpour, whispers of disgruntlement could be heard.  By dusk when a halt to the profitless fiasco was called, we were chilled to the bone, soaking, thirsty and famished.

Our glum homeward buses took us eventually through Cullompton.  Frantically as we came into the town centre we banged on the drivers’ cabs to stop.

It must have been at the beginning of the week as we still had our ‘Saturday Shilling’ weekly pocket money – or most of it anyway.  And a shilling in those days bought two-and-a-half pints of scrumpy.

There is a pub (I really ought to try to seek it out someday, if only for nostalgic reasons) there in the centre in which I – for the first time in my life – along with the entire senior half of the school from Head Boy (a most upright citizen) downwards – poured pints of that wicked liquor onto empty juvenile stomachs and got totally smashed, plastered, legless, whistled.

I do not know if it is the same now (I suspect not) but in those days all the routine of day-to-day public school discipline was in the hands of the prefects – of which high caste I was myself by then one -  who praised, rarely, and punished (including with a cane) – less rarely. According to the code of the day; masters were at a remove, mostly living away in separate houses, and only became involved in exceptional matters.  Imagine then when all we roaring boys – we pillars of school discipline – returned to the school: one glorious anarchic night of revelry; small boys traditionally in awe or worship of their elders gazing at scenes of levity, their mentors in disarray, the staff powerless.

Next day we were heavy-headed but authority’s hand was light.

As both The Priory House and The School House were the first houses of Dover College, it was required that they be referred to as THE. The HM and The Priory House master, A D F Dale were insistant upon this. It has always been thus as far as the intake to The Priory House of 1948 are concerned. Long may it so remain.

Progress from Fag to Prefect was steep. Once the period of Fagging was complerted, usually one year, one became a Prep Room Boy. This brought freedom from Fagging, but not sweeping, dusting or waiting at table. Prefects ran a disciplined,orderly and harmonious(!!!!!!!!!) house, and were trusted to so do. There was a prefect to each deck, a prefect i/c waiting and dining room, a prefect i/c changing rooms, boot room and yard, etcetera. Rotas were aranged to ensure this cleanliness was maintained. Between Mr and Mrs Dale, Matron, Miss White, the House and School Prefects, peace ruled. The yard and cycle sheds were swept, the trophies polished, and so forth , and order reigned.

There was the annual house clean, when every moveable item was moved, every windiw was cleaned with water and newspapers. The yard and cycle shed were tidied, and the loose rod in the iron fence was widened just that little bit more to allow even the largest boy to sneak out if possible. Cleanliness, neatness and tidiness were essential.

1st bell was rung at 7.am, when the duty prefect would walk the decks ringing the bell. Again at 7.30 and finally at 10 mins to 8am when all would assemble for roll call and inspection in the Prep Room. Notices would be given out, then we would proceed into breakfast.  Prior to this, all fagging and house duties had to be carried out, prefects of School Level were exempt. We would all stand at our appointed places in the dining-room until Mr and Mrs Dale, Miss White and our appointed House Tutor entered via the private quarters, grace would be said and the meal commence.

Dress was important, “Boys are citizens of Dover, and will respect such,” was the rule of George Renwick, our HM. Navy blue suits, clean white (separate) shirt collars, shining shoes  clean and pressed trousers and school caps were to be worn. The middle button of our jackets were to be always buttoned. House ties had to be worn: Priory a blue stripe, School a red stripe, Leamington a mauve and Martins a Yellow stripe. Those entitled to wear boater hats were house and school prefects. House prefects wore plain straw, School prefects had theirs painted black, with the school ribbon and crest around both. School prefects carried a cane.  No one, other than staff, School Prefects or first sports Colours were permitted to walk on the close. School colours? ah, that leads me the next chapter……….

By A.F.R Dale, former Housemaster of Priory House. Priory House had to be pulled down when internal works caused the building to become unsafe.

Priory House

When the House was completed in 1877, the Headmaster (Canon Bell) moved from St. Martin’s House and occupied it for four years until the School House, built on similar lines with separate bed-rooms for the boys, was ready. Then Mr. C. E. Sparkes, who had rented St. Martin’s, moved his boys into the building leaving St. Martin’s empty for two terms and the name Sparkes’ House can be seen on surviving photographs of the period 1881-1894. lt was not until the reign of the next Housemaster that the boys first became known as Prior House and this was under Mr. T. T. Carlyon, who llke the then Housemaster, Canon Compton, came from Uppingham School and who had much influence in building up our traditions. Indeed, a later Housemaster-Mr. C. L. Evans – first served under him on the College staff. Roy Heathcote Hacker was one of the very devoted Old Boys of Carlyon’s period.

Mr. Carlyon left to take up a post at the Naval College at Osborne and again the St. Martin’s Housemaster – the Revd. A. E. Wynne, a Mathematical scholar of Jesus, Cambridge – moved round the Close. “Fusti” Wynne was Housemaster until he moved to Blundell’s School, where he became Headmaster. After his retirement he came back and lived at St. Margaret’s Bay, visiting the College on numerous occasions. He died in 1964 after having reached the ripe old age of I00. He had brought up Priory O.D. s for some seven years, many of whom lost their lives in the First World War.  Francis Biddulph is one who can tell us about this period of the House’s history, and we print below some of his impressions.

Then came the Housemastership of Mr. C. L. Evans. His first task was to take the House to Leamington in 1917 and to keep it alive until its return to its own home, which had been occupied by the Pay Corps. Under his guidance, the House continued to flourish and C.L. also spent much time and energy on his work as the Dover Secretary of the O.D. Club and on the College Register of that time. Mrs. Evans produced each year the Priory House plays, which provided a breeding ground for the School actors. ln 1934, he was taken ill and died in the House which he had served for some eighteen years. Cecil Raw was of his time, another devoted O.D. who became Chairman of the Governors.

On C.L.’s death, Mr. Morgan, the Bursar and outstanding rugger coach, took over until Mr. Munns was appointed. Once more the move was from St. Martin’s and now the Houses were organised differently, so that boarding fees went to the College, instead of being paid to the Housemaster.

Mr. Munns took the House to Devonshire, first to Blundell’s and then to Poltimore House. Here the boys had one big room both for recreation and for prep. had dormitories in place of the single rooms they were used to, and studies were non-existent for some time. Mrs. Munns was in charge of the whole domestic side of the College which ate centrally-a Herculean task for a housemaster’s wife.

But war ended at last and the move back to Priory House was immediately organised-the corridors were now “Decks” and the Housemaster’s bedroom labelled “Chief Wren”, for the house had been occupied by the Navy. “Chief Wren” disappeared but Mr. Munns did not object to “Decks” and “Decks” they still are.

Mr. Munns retired in 1947 and the writer of these notes was then appointed. Many Priory O.D.’s came to see the old place after the War and parties of a dozen or more would stay at O.D. Week-ends and relive some of their memories. There was much rebuilding to put right and central heating replaced the dangerous open fires. The cycle shed was rebuilt by the boys, who also decorated studies and prep. room-a tradition still carried on. A subscription list for bunks was opened and soon these were installed in the prep. room and overflowed into the dining room-all are marked with the names of the donors. Rationing continued for some years and it is difficult now to picture how much the ladies of the household had to do behind the scenes.

Then, from the same Oxford College as Mr. Carlyon and the same school as A.D.F.D., Mr. E. L. Wright became Housemaster. Numbers in the House became greater. But this is current affairs and he continues day by day with the thought “May Priory House prosper”.
A.F.R.DALE

[These history articles all come from a publication celebrating the College's 100th Anniversary in 1971]

SCHOOL HOUSE REVISITED
BUT THE MELODY LINGERS ON . . .

I lean back against the deck-rail of the Ostend-Dover packetboat, watch the harbour slowly diminish in the lazy February sunshine and wonder. How much would everything have changed? Could I still enjoy the reminiscence without destroying the illusion?

School House

A whole decade had passed since the last time I had pulled out of Dover Priory Station and joined the rat-race of the individual. The big world beyond the Close. It had been fun in those intervening years to glimpse the Castle behind Gert Frobe in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, and the nestling docks far below the Spitfires and Messerschmidts in The Battle of Britain. But now it would be for real. Retracing old steps. Recalling past faces.

As we reverse into the Western Dock I search the landscape for familiar landmarks. The Whalers gently riding their moorings. The Dover Stage, towering over the promenade. This time it all seems smaller. Slower. They’ve filled in the rails that used to run along the front. Loreleis for our bicycle tyres. New flats have sprawled their concrete limbs across the wasteland behind the East Kent Coach terminus. Under the East Cliff I hunt in vain for a dingy café known as Smokey Joe’s, where we first heard Cliff Richard sing Livin’ Doll on the juke box and studied the pleasures of nicotine. On up King Street. I recognise little more than the bus shelters. Oases in the desert. Ray Warner has moved on to pastures new. Eddie Crush has crossed the road. Once upon a time there were four cinemas in the Town, and a week of heavy rain in the summer could mean a plethora of celluloid fantasies for less than a pound. Now, everywhere is Chinese restaurants and Package Holidays. What is the “Top Hat”? I remember that used to be called Pelosi’s, refugee from the sudden Mediterranean influx, and strictly out-of-bounds. And round the corner from the A.B.C., didn’t we used to have cream teas for half-a-crown served by the original bearded lady?

I turn into Saxon Street, once the red light district for the chaps in Blue and Khaki, and very occasionally for those in Grey Herring-Bone as well. Somehow, I still feel a stranger in the land. A tourist off the beaten track.

And then, like the best traditional Pantomime, the Chapel clock strikes twelve and reality begins to focus. The notes seem to hang in the air. Quick. Clear. Perhaps a semi-tone higher than l remember. Time can play a trick or two like that. The Close is quiet. Sunny and peaceful with the distant sound of a mowing machine somewhere near the boat-sheds. Was I really here? Aeons of happy days telescoped into a few seconds. Close to the tuck-shop I find a phone box. Something we never had. Instant contact with the outside world at the press of a button. That’s progress. I wander in and out of the surrounding buildings. Am I looking for a clue? The click of the heavy Chapel door. The curved treads of the Library steps. The jagged shadows thrown by the Refectory ruins. Memories, are made of this. Suddenly a bell rings and the area is alive. Boys clutching books and turning hither and thither. Trousers a little more flared. Hair slightly nearer the shoulder. Otherwise exactly the same. I must have rung that bell myself in the past but I cannot remember where. Or how. Or when. I sense l am being stared at. An alien from another planet.

Later on l see some of the same faces across the lunch table. The best of hospitality. I wonder if the Headmaster still sees me as a spotted youth struggling with “A”_Levels and trying to funk the steeplechase. l look around the dining-room. The silver cups glint quietly on the sideboard. More names have been added  to the list of honoured.
Many more names will be added in the future. Far away in a prefect’s study I can hear the latest on Radio One. We used to play Chris Barber in Berlin or My Fair Lady, and thought we were bloody marvellous!

Forgive me, old chap, for not recognising you straight away. Silly of me, because I knew you very well really and you’ve hardly changed at all. You must have known thousands of us; even tens of thousands perhaps. And yet you still welcome us back with warmth and affection. I think maybe you’ve lost a little colour. Put on a bit of weight. But you certainly haven’t aged.

Congratulations, old chap, and here’s to the next century.
ROBIN R. TAYLOR (S ’6l)

The College was granted arms on January 20th, 1931.

SHIELD: Sable, a Cross Argent between four Leopard’s Faces Or, on a Chief of the last, the Castle with two Towers of the field  between two open Books Argent, edged gold, bound Gules.

CREST: On a wreath of the colours, a  Demi-man (representing St. Martin) habited as a Roman Soldier, holding in his dexter  hand a sword with which he divides his  cloak flowing from his shoulders, and  supported by his sinister hand, all proper.

MOTTO: NON RECUSO LABOREM.

The blazon (heraldic description) means  that on a black shield is a silver cross between four leopard’s faces of gold. On the  upper third of the field (the “chief”), which  is “of the last” tincture previously named, in this case, gold, is a castle with two towers “of the field”, that is to say, of the same colour as the main part of the  shield, which is black. The castle is placed between two open books with white pages, edged with gold and bound in red. Above the shield is an esquire’s helmet-this is the type of helmet always given in England to a  Corporation-and on it a wreath of twisted silk “of the (principal) colours” of the shield, which are here silver and  black. The wreath helps to hold in place the mantling, which is the conventional representation of the cloth with which a knight covered the back of his helmet and his shoulders, and the crest, which is St. Martin, shown from the thighs upwards. He is in the act of dividing his cloak, which is fastened to his shoulders. He holds it in his left hand and his sword in his right-the words “dexter” and “sinister” mean the right and left of the bearer of the crest and shield, not of the viewer of them. St Martin, his armour, sword and cloak, are all “proper”, that is to say,  represented in their natural colours.

The lower part of the shield displays the arms of the ancient Norman Priory of St. Martin, the buildings of which  are now occupied by the College. The castle is an allusion, not to Dover Castle as might be expected, but to the Town of Dover, the Gateway of England. The crest refers to the well-known legend of St. Martin’s giving half his soldier’s cloak to a naked beggar who, that night, appeared to him in a dream and revealed that he was Christ  whom Martin had clothed. St. Martin and the beggar appear in the Arms of the Dover Borough Council. The words of the motto, which may be translated, “l do not shrink from work”, are said to have been used by St. Martin on his deathbed.

Below is an article scanned in by Guy Nickalls from the Illustrated London News, 1891. You can get a close-up view of it by clicking on it (and then clicking again to get the larger picture). The woodcut is quite beautiful, you need to get close-up to appreciate it!

Ranks! The Fag

There were several grades – or ranks – of boys in 1948.  These were The Fag , The Prep Room Boy, The Study Boy,  The House-Prefect, and finally – The School Prefect. Each level held a duty or responsibility, and each was denoted by the tie that he wore.

So, welcome, new boy – you are a fag and you will be denoted by the wearing of your house tie. In the case of The Priory House, this is a black tie carrying a blue diagonal series of stripes.

Your duties, boy, are to be at the beck and hall of any prefect and to do his bidding. When you hear an authoritive voice shout “FAG!! “, you are to run in the direction of that voice – and the last fag to arrive is to carry out the instruction given him by that voice.

In addition, you will be allocated to the personal authority of a prefect along with another fag who will teach you the personal requirements of that prefect, and these you are to carry out. These would include sweeping and dusting his study, his bedroom, his shoes, his cadet bots and the blancoeing of his cadet webbing.

House prefects could only use their authority within their house, whereas school prefects had authority anywhere.

Those who were cunning, like me, would soon learn the places to successfully hide on hearing the dreaded call.  Behind the changing room door, in the outside toilets, in the dining-room behind the trophy cupboard. We soon learnt.

At this point may I express my apologies to Byron, whose fag I was, Chamberlain and Price-Forbes, whose calls I sometimes managed to avoid.

In addition to fagging duties, it was the duty of fags and prep-room boys to carry out domestic duties, over which the house-prefects had control. There would be the floors to sweep, the corridors to dus, the yard to tidy and everyone, fags and prep-room boys had to take it in turns to “wait at table” ! In fact, as added punishments, sweeps and waiting might be added to the routine of your normal duties.

As to the argument that fagging was cruel, my own view is that it was not so. I believe that these arduous duties taught us two very important lessons:

1. Before anyone uses a given authority, he should first understand what it is like to have to underg the tasks onself.
2. To achieve any purpose or success in life, it always helps to start on the workshop floor.

Next time: The prep room boy

I was one of a very large intake to the College in 1948. There were twelve of us who entered The Priory House that autumn, with dear old A.D.F.Dale, otherwise known as “Auntie”, or “The Aunt”. I still do not know why!

In The Priory House, which was a purpose-built boarding house, we had a ground floor, consisting of toilets, showers,changing room, boiler house, kitchens, dining room, prep room and a long corridor with small wash-basins, and personal lockers.

Above were three floors, set out in corridors with studies, and separate bed-rooms on either side. Head of house had his own double room, consisting of study and bedroom.

As new boys we had two forms of “initiation” to undergo! Firstly, we had to sing a song to the other boys in residence. This was done whilst “standing” on the top of the fire-place in the prep room. If we were poor, which we always were, then the house hymn books, (English Hymnal) would be hurled at us. I recall singing Irving Berlin’s “This is the Army”.

Our second welcome was to have to run the full length of all three floors, each resident would stand in his bedroom door with a slipper in his hand. The rest you can imagine!

The three floors of bedrooms and studies were known as A.B.& C decks. At one end they had a small trap – door and a rope attached to the wall alongside. In the event of a fire, the bell would ring and we would make for the ropes. There were never any fires, but an innumerable number of fire drills. Authorised and unauthorised.

My first bedroom was on the top floor at the far end. I had a side window and the fire-escape trapdoor was just outside my room. After my third term, I came back from rugby practice, to find my bed, intact with bedding, were attached to the end of the fire escape rope, hanging out of my bed-room window.

Next – life as a fag

A parent’s story

My wife and I were living in 1975 some 7000 miles from England and we had two daughters part-way through their education at a girls’ school in Folkestone, Brampton Down. So we were somewhat put out at the end of 1974 when informed that their school was closing without further notice. Somewhat of a dilemma! But before we had even finished scratching our heads we received a telegram from the Headmaster of Dover College, David Cope, offering to take both the girls in at Dover immediately. He promised to have them met, accommodated, taken to the school outfitters to get kitted out, and generally looked after.

What had befallen to prompt this unanticipated offer, which came completely out of the blue, was that the girls’ brother, at the time in St. Martins, had spoken to the headmaster about the family problem, who made immediate response because he was planning to take the school co-ed. It provided a solution for us of course.

Although the college was already planning to take in girls, the proposed start date was still two terms off and there was no girls’ Boarding House ready to receive them – Duckworth was not opened for girls for a further two terms. But Jean Tuckwell, who had been appointed Housemistress, and Nigel her husband who was Senior Master, took our girls into St. Anne’s where they boarded in a basement bedroom prepared for them. That was their home for the next two terms until the College officially went co-ed.

There were ten others who joined at the same time who were therefore the first girls at Dover College.
January 1975 –

• Margaret Bourner
• Tessa Rosenz
• Caroline Teed
• Denise Stretton
• Nicola Stenning
• Alison Thomas
• Liana Brown
• Marcena Orcutt
• Sandra Hignett
• Kay Manning
• Penelope Nickalls
• Helen Nickalls

Then in April 1975 –

• Rebecca James
• Julian (sic) Squire [Julian Mary Squire]:-

A daughter recollects

It was an interesting scenario going to Dover ‘before they went officially co-educational’ but it was also not ideal for me having been completely let down by my former school. I was about to sit O levels, and had to change school, change examining boards and try and cover a new syllabus in a matter of one and a bit terms, eg all new books for English literature and maths went from trad maths to SMP.

I remember a geography teacher saying to me ‘do you realise you only know a third of the syllabus’ and he gave me a load of  pamphlets on different countries to try and close the gaps. It was a strange time and difficult. My brother being there helped a lot and then when the rest of the girls turned up in the Sixth form things began to ‘normalise’. However, we were welcomed and we were definitely looked after. A bit of a novelty for the boys!!!

I would guess from the schools’ perspective, the initial batch of dames helped the transition into co-education generally. They must have been better prepared when the formal change occurred and the boys would have settled to the concept too.

By an Old Dovorian

Dover College moved back from Poltimore to Dover at the end of the war.   The Normandy landings had taken place on the 6^th of May, 1944 and the Pas de Calais, across the Straits of Dover, was cleared by Canadian troops in September 1944 when the era of German shelling, air raids and V-Bombs on the Kent coast ended.  British troops crossed the Rhine into Germany in March, 1945.  The war in Europe ended on May the 9^th, 1945 with the official surrender of the Germans taken by Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery on Luneberg Heath, ratified in Berlin.

Dover College - the Chapel

Dover had been very severely bombarded in the war and was known as Hellfire Corner, with many buildings in ruins, including some in the College.   The record shows that 2226 German shells hit Dover as well as numerous bombs dropped by aircraft.  The Gatehouse was propped up with baulks of timber and the front of St. Martins House knocked down by a shellwas still under reconstruction, so we slept in the Refectory for some weeks until rebuilding was completed.

My overwhelming reaction to Dover was the cold.   There was little or no heating, so boys crowded round the radiators to keep warm   The showers ran cold after the first few boys had used them, and so one ran back from the playing fields at Farthingloe or Maxton as fast as one could to get there first.    As disciplined public shool boys we couldn’t complain, of course, and had we had the temerity to do so would have received the standard reply to every such question “There’s a war on!” even thought it had ended.   We had to get accustomed to different routines, because unlike Poltimore where everything was under one roof, back at Dover we moved from building to building for our various classes, which again involving going out into the cold without topcoats, and we had to walk or run in sports gear to Maxton or Farthingloe for games.  It was usually bitterly cold and the wind gusted down the Folkestone road.  I considered Dover the coldest place in England because during the was the BBC only  gave out weather reports for Dover…  Of course only 21 miles away the  Germans could see what Dover weather was like, so no useful information was givenout  to the enemy.

With the end of the war, all schoolboys and girls received a Message from the King dated 8^th June, 1946 which read:

“Today, as we celebrate victory, I send this personal message to you and all other boys and girls at school.  For you have shared in the hardships and dangers of a total war and you have shared no less in the triumph of the Allied Nations.

I know you will always feel proud to belong to a country which was capable of such supreme effort; proud, too, of parents and elder brothers and sisters who by their courage, endurance and enterprise brought victory.  May these qualities be yours as you grow up and join in the common effort to establish among the nations of the world unity and peace.

George R.I.

The teaching staff was still restricted, not only numerically but also in age, because all men and many women of military age were still serving in the Forces.   Thus we were taught mostly by the elderly, some brought back from retirement and pressed back into service.   Only one was young, F.M.White, unfit for military service, who taught me geography, successfully, and ran the Scout Troop.   Others like Bruce-Johnson who were young enough to serve in the Forces didn’t reappear on the scene until later.   My Housemaster,  Alon Ewart, had served in the First War.   The man who taught me English, quite successfully in fact as it was the subject in which I did best, was old Fortescue-Thomas, a retired clergyman who lived at Whitfield and used to ride to school on an old motorbike, who took up teaching to fill a staff gap.   Goodness knows how he had so much success with me, he had a stutter and when he got his words out they were often accompanied by a spray of saliva.  In fact I think this is why I paid attention to his words – it was fascinating waiting to hear his stutter and see the spray!  A sardonic character tried to teach Maths, unsuccessfully, as there was no rapport between us.   The Mon, my Housemaster,  taught chemistry, but didn’t get me through in his subject, which no doubt irritated him.  I enjoyed Physics but forget the name of my teacher.  French was taught by old “Tusky” (R.D.G.Munns) and he was good – very hot on correct pronunciation, and it was this that got me through the viva voce part of my ‘O’ Levels exam with a lady examiner who came to the school, i.e. I suppose I bluffed my way through.   George Renwick, simply nicknamed ‘George’, was our Headmaster through the war and earned high praise, both for the way he ran the school and for getting the school through the war despite extremely low numbers and all its difficulties.

Leamington House had been closed at the beginning of the war for lack of numbers and then re-opened when B-J (Bruce-Johnston), its housemaster,  returned from military service.   Volunteers were drafted from the other three Houses, School, Martins and Priory to fill the house.

In my spare time I wandered around Dover, the sea front and the Eastern and Western Heights.   The Eastern Heights beyond the Castle had plenty to interest a boy as it was littered with the evidence of the war.   Gun emplacements, roads, railways, barbed wire fences and all the impedimenta of war.  The coastal road past Langdon Cliffs to St. Margarets Bay had been closed to traffic throughout the war because there were so many military emplacements there, and only the farmers who worked the land were allowed access.   The Western entrance to the Harbour was still sealed by a sunken blockship and the cross-channel ferries “Lord Warden” and the “Shepperton Ferry” were tied up in the Wellington Dock.  Much of Dover had been destroyed by German shells and bombs, and many of the seafront buildings were rubble.  Visualise the seafront today as it would be with The Gateway flats a pile of rubble.

We were very restricted at school and it is remarkable to see how times have changed and rules eased.  For instance, we were not allowed to enter other Houses, and the House system was extremely rigid.  This was supposed to introduce a competitive element into our education, but in fact it created barriers and blind rivalry.  One did not find friends from other Houses.   Only prefects were allowed to walk on the grass of the College Close, and walking with hands in pockets earned a punishment – remember how cold it was!  We were not allowed in the High Street, but could walk across it.  We had to wear our straw hats (boaters) in summer when out in the town, which earned us contemptuous comment from the town lads.  We could not leave Dover except with permission and the opportunity to do so was extremely limited.  We could not go to the cinema, which was particularly onerous when there was little other entainment available – no television!”.  Pocket money was still a shilling a week – 5p in today’s money!  (I had earned an extra  sixpence a week from the Prefect I fagged for in Poltimore)  None of the pastoral care that is today a strong feature at Dover existed.  Little contact with masters or housemaster, as any attempt would be regarded as ‘crawling’or ‘sucking up’!  The routine was Roll Call, meals (in the house), lessons, games, prep. and then bed.  All rather boring

Hobbies afternoon was a new institution back at Dover and every Thursday afternoon was devoted to the activities of your choice.   My choices were to continue with membership of the Corps and the Scout Troop, both of which did me some good, but in retrospect I would have liked to have done some sailing – but that activity was hard to get into because of  its popularity, and in fact only in the summer term was any actual sailing done – during the other two terms it was boat maintenance and theoretical instruction. Dover won the Public Schools sailing completion around that time.    The Corps was very well run by the “Mon” (Major Ewart, my Housemaster) and later B-J, and proved very good training for my military service afterwards.   Unfortunately, the Corps no longer exists which I feel is a bad thing, because of the skills it taught and the discipline it imparted, but the encouragement of warlike instincts in the young is now politically incorrect.   In any case, I doubt the school now boasts of any suitably qualified Masters who have seen military service to run it.   Little heed is paid to the merits of training in discipline, the physical skills learnt on the assault course, esprit de corps and the achievement and other intangibles that were derived from it.   Dover College also had an Air Training Corps which started quite a number of school leavers on a career in the RAF.   Certainly I feel the Corps was instrumental in helping shape my future to an appreciable extent.

On one occasion Field Marshall Lord Montgomery of Alamain and Normandy fame came to Dover to receive the Freedom of the Town and the Dover College Corps mounted a Guard of Honour on the Close for his inspection, in which I took part.  Years later during my military service I stood on the steps leading to the Officers Mess of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment to welcome Monty back on a visit  to his old Regiment.  He stopped at me and said “I’ve seen you before, have’nt I”.  With chest swelling and  bursting with pride that I should be remembered by the great man, I could only repl weaklyy “yes sir”.  Later I realised that the regimental ADC was walking closely behind him and had whispered something into his ear.  That was one of the  techniques that made him so popular with his men.

Patrick Vanson, with whom I shared a study (with J T Reid and John Shaw), and I represented the School Scout Troop (1st Dover) one summer at a weekend Jamboree with two-boy teams drawn from all the Scout Troops in Kent.   It involved cycling about 30 miles to reach the Park (Leeds Castle grounds, I believe), pitching our tent, constructing a model campsite and doing all the things Scouts were trained to do, including keeping ourselves neat and tidy and well dressed.   My bike got a puncture on the way, and I thought our chances had been dashed when I finally pushed the machine through the checkpoint at the gates, looking and feeling very tired and dishevelled.  It was a hell of a lot of work and no play getting the campsite laid out.  But the reward of our labours was that we came first in Kent!  The wooden trophy was handed to me nearly 50 years later by Pearl White, the widow of our Scoutmaster, F.M.White, who had received it at the time after the end of the term when I left.

I was also in the College Choir and a member of the Choral Society which, augmented by staff, wives and girls from Dover Grammar School, performed some excellent concerts.  I also remember, with horror, being forced to attend concerts by string quartets composed of elderly ladies playing in the unheated Refectory, whilst I shuffled my bottom on hard wooden chairs hoping it would soon all be over.  What a dreadful introduction to classical music – almost amounting to a punishment, I felt.

At Dover, I was able to get the bus to Folkestone where Grandma and Auntie lived and also, until we moved from the Sturry bungalow to Notting Hill, I was able to bus home, but that was a longer journey involving a changes of bus at Canterbury, and I didn’t have the time to do it often.   One did not go home in termtime in those days, it wasn’t the ethos to do so, and I don’t remember I ever went home at half term.  There was usually some activity or other; certainly in the summer when the Scouts went to camp.   One such summer camp was held at Olantigh, near Wye I remember.  There, we were rooted out of our tents at dawn and forced by F M White to run naked into the River Stour to wake us and put some life into us.

Sport was compulsory in those days.   It was also compulsory to go up and watch a 1st XV or 1st XI game when played at home at Maxton.  That took care of many Saturday afternoons, of course.   The standard of coaching in games was nothing like as good as it is today; remember we had many super-annuated teachers and very few keen young men on the staff.   There was no real coaching; one just had to pick it up as best you could.   I had behind me my rather unfortunate experiences at Marlborough where a regime of sport was thrust on us to keep us occupied during the mornings.   However, I achieved something at the High Jump and represented the School in the 120-yard Hurdles in the Triangular Games with Kings, Canterbury and St. Lawrence, Ramsgate where we took 1st and 2nd place (myself in second place to ‘Bull’ Hall) and where I earned my Half Blackmy only sporting achievement.

Each Summer the Scouts went off to Summer Camp for a week or a fortnight.   In 1947, at the end of my last Summer Term at school we went off to St. Aygulf in the South of France, a seaside resort near St. Raphael.   It was a very long journey in a crowded train, not so very long after the end of the war, and there were no seats for us.   We sat in corridors or on the steps of the open carriage doors to get some cool breeze.   After at least 24 hours on the train, with many long stops, we arrived at St. Raphael and were taken to St. Aygulf where we stayed in a partly derelict hotel, still not yet renovated after the war. Filthy loos!  However, it was a superb holiday as we went on trips along the Cote d’Azur to Cannes, Nice, Menton and up into the hills to Grasse, the centre of the perfume industry.   In the evenings, roller skating and watching American films dubbed into French in the open air.  The camp contained young students from all over Europe and I particularly remember the Danes in their student caps and Czechs who were very concerned about the communist rule in their country under the Russian occupation.

On the return trip, I stopped off in Paris whilst the others went on home.   I stayed a week with a French pen pal named Pierre Courtecuisse.   They had a splendid home in a village on the outskirts of Paris, as his father was a wealthy industrialist who owned a factory manufacturing Piles.  Pile “Wonder”, the French “Ever Ready”. It took me some time to discover that Piles were torch batteries and not a medical condition!  When he pointed out an imposing building and named it the ‘loppera’, it took me quite some time to realise he was pronouncing ‘the opera’ in French.  I was also extremely worried when, entering what I thought was the Gents toilet in Paris, I immediately saw a woman in there.  I had to be reassured that she was only the cleaner and it was quite normal to have a woman cleaning the male urinals while one pee-d.

When I returned to England and home to Notting Hill, where we then lived, my education was over.   I had got through Oxford & Cambridge School Certificate with one Distinction (English Literature), three Credits (English

Language, Geography and French) and two Passes (Maths, Physics and something else I forget).   My one failure was Chemistry, and my Housemaster, Alon Ewart never forgave me, as it was he who had endeavoured to teach me.   Only getting a Pass in Maths meant I had failed to gain Matriculation Exemption, i.e. University Entrance standard.   My education came to an end a few days after my 17th birthday, and I had had enough of school anyhow.   Remember too that the school leaving age was not raised from 14 to 15 until 1947!  July, 1947.   I now had to find a job!

A wallet left by my father contains 3 receipted school bills.  In April 1944 the bill was £27.18.0d.  InSeptember 1944 £30.7.4d and in April 1945 £31.1.2d.  I was educated very cheaply which explains a lot.